A friend who proclaims his allegiance to the MAGA way of thinking recently attempted to explain why he believes in the political ideas of Donald Trump. I read his commentary with great interest because I believe that we will never set things right as long as we refuse to hear and attempt to understand the people whose political leanings seem to be so different from our own. 

I began to parse his statements with the knowledge that I have always known him to be a good hard working family man. He worked alongside me in one of the schools where I taught mathematics. Our students were more often than not first generation Americans whose parents were recent immigrants to our country. Many of them lived in homes where English was rarely spoken. They often had to work after school to help the family pay for the basic necessities of living. While they may not have been wealthy in terms of income, most of them learned the value of determination and generosity from their parents whose sole goal in life seemed to be to create a better way of living for their children.  

This man who was a fellow teacher also knew a great deal about repairing cars so he came up with an idea for the students that he thought might help them. He purchased an old automobile, parked it outside of the school gym and offered lessons on mechanics after school to anyone eager to learn the foundations of a trade. It was inspiring to watch him working with the young people and to see how much they appreciated his extra efforts. 

Fast forward to the present and I find myself reading the proclamations of this man in which he defended his stance as a MAGA. What I learned from him is that fairness is of utmost importance in shaping his political views. He claims to have no prejudices against immigrants but at the same time he insists that they come to our nation legally. Since I observed his kindness to our immigrant students in real time I can attest to his sincerity in this regard but our opinions diverge in many other ways. 

I too believe that there have to be rules in most aspects of life but I have learned over time that there is indeed a blurred line in which following the so called letter of the law sometimes seems more unjust than taking valid reasons for infractions into account. This is particularly true when looking at our immigration system. All too often the ability to manipulate the system is relatively easier for a white male who is wealthy than for a person of color for whom many Americans still have negative reactions. Take the case of Elon Musk for example. It seems that he came to the United States on a student visa but was soon working rather than studying. He violated the conditions of his visa but little or nothing was done to inhibit his ability to stay in our nation. On the other hand, the Trump administration is openly talking about certain groups of people that he calls”trash” and indicating that we need to rid ourselves of them even if they have followed the rules one hundred percent of the time. I truly wonder if my friend is deluding himself in overlooking such contradictions to his idea of fairness. Is it really fair to classify people according to personal feelings about their worth in order to make it more difficult to be citizens of our nation?

My friend then went on to describe his desire to make decisions for himself without government interference but countered his arguments for freedom by describing ways of forcefully attempting to change the lifestyles of trans individuals and those whose spiritual lives are different from his own. He does not seem to note the contradictions of his feelings in which he wants more freedom for the causes that are important to him but less for those that he does not like or understand. Because I know him quite well I don’t believe that he is just an angry prejudiced individual but he has wrongly bought into ugly propaganda that streams regularly from the mouth of Trump and is reinforced by his loyalists. Somehow he has been convinced to link his religious beliefs with a kind of harshness that denies the worth of many segments of society. 

I struggle to speak individually with people like my one time colleague. It pains me to know that he has been mesmerized by the MAGA way of governing. Because I know him well I cannot simply indict him and I don’t want to call him ignorant either but I cannot get through to him no matter how hard I try. Our only meeting of minds occurs when he speaks so kindly about the love for his students that I know that he is genuine. He proselytizes as though he is on a holy crusade to help all Americans understand what he believes to be truth while obliterating the possibility that there may be a much kinder and more logical way of living together in harmony. I may as well be shouting into the void whenever I attempt to make my differing point of view known to him. He is adamant that I have nothing of worth to say even as I go to great lengths to give him the benefit of doubt. It frustrates me on a very personal level to know how many souls like him surround me from day to day. I wish that the MAGAs that I know would be more willing to have a genuine discussion in which we might find the common ground that we need to make the nightmare of this moment in our nation’s history go away. 

If he would actually listen I would say to my friend that fairness can’t be limited to only his point of view. If we indeed believe that each person should be free to be himself or herself then that must include people whose ideas seem to be diametrically opposed to our own. Our only way out of this morass is going to be the moment when we are once again able to rationally discuss issues for the common good of all people, not just a chosen few. That is the very definition of fairness and in that regard there cannot ever be exceptions.